Sunday, June 7, 1998 Last modified at 1:36 a.m. on Sunday, June 7, 1998

State schools can tell of race-based awards

AUSTIN (AP) - Texas colleges and universities can give students information about private scholarships awarded on the basis of race, according to Attorney General Dan Morales.

The attorney general's office said it wouldn't be a violation of a federal court ruling barring the schools from using race in admissions or financial aid.

Assistant Attorney General Mary Crouter released a legal opinion late Friday regarding the federal Hopwood court ruling. The decision forced any institutions accepting state funds to drop race as a factor in admissions and financial aid decisions.

She wrote the ruling limits only actions taken by the state.

"We do not believe that a private, nonprofit organization's scholarship program would rise to the level of state action merely because a state university provides students with information about the scholarship program," Ms. Crouter wrote.

"We cannot definitively resolve whether a state university's involvement in the scholarship program of a particular private nonprofit organization transforms the organization's private activities into `state actions'," she added.

"We believe, however, that a state university may provide to a private, nonprofit organization any student information that the university would generally provide to any other member of the public and would not thereby transform the organization's private activities into state action."

The 1996 Hopwood decision had been blamed for lower minority enrollment at the state's top universities. But UT and Texas A&M announced slight upturns in minority enrollment.

According to the UT law school, 21 black students had been offered admission for fall 1998, compared with 11 last year. There were 48 admission offers to Hispanics, up from 40.

In fall 1996, before Hopwood, UT enrolled 266 blacks and 932 Hispanics in a freshman class of 6,430.

For fall 1998, the number of confirmed black students at Texas A&M was 146 late last month. That was about 2 percent of the 6,983 total. At the same time in 1997, the total was 129 of 5,332, or 2.4 percent.

The number of Hispanic students confirmed to enroll at Texas A&M was 567, or just more than 8 percent. Last year's tally at the same time was 515, or 9.6 percent.

UT is appealing the Hopwood ruling. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund are expected to file a motion to intervene in UT's appeal. The groups consider the university's appeal to be too limited.